Problem with SysRq commands, IPMI SOL, and conserver

Hello,

We've been using conserver here for many years to target a variety of serial 
console types.

For our servers equipped with IPMIv2.0 BMC's, we implement consoles by exec'ing 
'ipmitool sol activate', (as many other sites will be doing of course.) That all 
works well, but we are having problems with SysRq commands not getting properly 
sent to the target machines. I am certain that this has worked for us in the 
past - but it seems broken now.

Specifically:

1. If I use ipmitool *directly* to initiate a SOL serial console to such a 
machine, then I can reliably send a 'SysRq b' (for example) to that machine.

2. But, if I use conserver to manage a SOL serial console to the same machine 
(by configuring conserver to exec ipmitool), then an attempt to send a 'SysRq b' 
doesn't work. Instead, it results in output which suggests the the target 
machine has indeed received the 'SysRq' okay, but that it was then followed by 
some other character(s) which the SysRq handler wasn't expecting.

The conserver break sequence we have defined in these cases is '\n\~\B'; the 
version of conserver in use is 8.1.18; and the version of ipmitool is 1.8.11.

Has anybody else noticed this same problem? Alternatively, does anybody have a 
working conserver/ipmitool configuration in which SysRq commands do work?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

--
Ian Durkacz                              | idurkacz @ inf. ed. ac. uk
School of Informatics, Univ of Edinburgh | Tel: +44 (0)131 650 5188

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.